ations which have their common principle in the consciousness of the Ego, or in the active force which constitutes it. The third division, the most important of all, is that which philosophy even to the present time has felt it necessary to abandon to the speculations of mysticism, although it also resolves itself in facts of observation, exploring an elevated nature, it is true, superior to sense, but not foreign to the spirit which knows God and itself. This division will comprehend, then, the facts or modes and acts of the spiritual life. .. All the faculties relative to the spiritual life constitute the spirit of man in a state of pure receptivity of an influence superior to itself, but not foreign to its most elevated nature. This influence, in manifesting itself to the spirit's interior view, reveals at the same time the spirit itself as at the base of all, and as in connection with an ideal of beauty, of intellectual and moral perfection, etc. (New Essays. Introduction, tome iii, pp. 356–357.)

The New Essays were destined, in the thought of their author, to explain the nature of each of these three lives, in showing their differences, their mutual connections, and their hierarchy. Death did not permit him to finish his work; but we have an outline of it, which suffices at the least to give us a knowledge of its essential traits, and to attest the presence of a definitive doctrine, of which we find remaining but the indications. We shall examine soon, in another article, the import of this later evolution of his thought.

ART. VII. THE EXPLOITS AND MIRACLES OF FRANCIS XAVIER.

Life of St. Francis Xavier, Confessor, Apostle of the Indies. By Rev. ALBAN BUTLER. Dublin: 1833.

Life of a Jesuit Missionary.

London: 1852.

By Rev. W. H. RULE, D. D.

THE Church of Rome, from the period of her pretension to ecumenical supremacy, has sought in various ways to profit by the credulity of mankind. She has forged apostolical constitutions, she has sought to authenticate false decretals; and to say nothing now of her system of indulgences, by which she has made merchandise of the souls of men, she has encouraged the traffic in relics till Europe and other portions of the Catholic

world are filled with proofs of the extent to which superstition can be mingled with a semblance of the truth.*

Perhaps the most remarkable of all the modern prodigies performed or recorded in the interests of the Roman Church, are those associated with the names of Francis Xavier and his master, Ignatius Loyola.

Of the latter Trench remarks: "Upward of two hundred miracles of Loyola were laid before the Pope when his canonization was in question, miracles beside which those of our Lord shrink into insignificance. If Christ by his word and look rebuked and expelled demons, Ignatius did the same by a letter. If Christ walked once upon the sea, Ignatius many times in the air. If Christ by his shining countenance and glistening garments once amazed his disciples, Ignatius did it frequently, and, entering into dark chambers, could by his presence light them up as with candles."

Notwithstanding these marvels, the name of Loyola has come to be regarded, at least in the Protestant world, as little less than the synonym of craft, unscrupulousness, and duplicity. Xavier, however, owing to convenient abridgments and commutations that have been made in his history, is held in a very different estimation.

At this late period we should hardly deem it important to bring the life of Xavier to the test of criticism, did it not seem to have become a habit of some Protestant writers and speakers to present it often for the admiration and imitation of the present and future generations. Of the propriety of this course a better judgment may be formed in the sequel.

The full life of our hero was written in Latin by F. Turselin, in six volumes, and first printed at Rome in 1594. The same author translated into Latin and published, in 1596, the saint's letters, in four volumes. His life was further written by Orlandino, in the history of the Society of Jesus; in Italian by Bar

*Not to speak of the bones of the saints generally and the wood of the true cross, the following may be named as specimens of the relics of which the more favored churches and cathedrals boast: A piece of linen cloth woven by the Virgin Mary; a piece of the head of a fish mentioned by Tobit; the scissors with which Delilah cut off Samson's locks; a piece of the apron which the butcher wore who killed the fatted calf at the return of the prodigal; a branch of the tree on which Absalom hung by the hair; a piece of St. Peter's fishing-net; a quill from the wing of the Archangel Gabriel.

toli and Maffei, in Portuguese by Luzena, in Spanish by Garcia, and in German by Nuremberg; while it figures largely in Guzman's history of missions to the East Indies, and various books of history and travel relating to the East. From these and other sources a most popular life of Xavier was compiled and written in French by the celebrated Jesuit rhetorician Bouhours. In 1688 a translation, purporting to have been made by Dryden, was published in English. Dr. Johnson, in his life of the poet, discredits his having made the translation; and the probability is that as he had about that time professed Romanism, his name was merely secured to aid in the circulation of the book. Thus it will be seen that all the principal countries of Europe have been favored with full accounts of the man whom the Jesuits delighted to honor. One of the most substantial Catholic biographies of Xavier is that first named at the head of this article, and found in Butler's Lives of the Saints. It is a thorough digest of the material furnished by the original biographers, and the Catholicity, piety, and learning of the author are officially attested by not less than twenty-eight bishops and archbishops of the Roman Church.

The memoir by Dr. Rule is the first of a series entitled CELEBRATED JESUITS. The series includes memoirs of a saint, a doctor, a regicide, a cardinal, a mandarin, and a refugee. It is written from a Protestant point of view, and with great ability.

In order to reach in the most direct manner the merits of the case now under inquiry, we will present a summary statement of the principal miracles said to have been performed by Francis Xavier, taken from the record of Father Butler in his own language, which we have barely illuminated with a few italics.

It is worthy of observation that all these miracles are located beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and that the series commenced immediately after the arrival of the missionary in the Portuguese possessions of the East. One of the original six of the company of Loyola, Xavier was its first foreign missionary. He sailed from Lisbon in 1541, bearing briefs as an apostolic nuncio, and accompanied by two subordinates. His first destination was Goa, the seat of Portuguese authority, but a place abandoned to the lowest degree of immorality.

MIRACLES AT THE PEARL FISHERIES.

The reformation of the whole city of Goa was accomplished in half a year, when the saint was informed that on the coast of the Pearl Fishery there were a certain people called Paravas, who some time ago, in order to please the Portuguese, who had succored them against the Moors, had caused themselves to be baptized, but for want of instructions retained their superstitions and vices. Xavier had by this time got a little acquaintance with the Malabar language, which is spoken on that coast; and taking with him two young ecclesiastics who understood it competently well, embarked in October, 1542, and sailed to Cape Comorin, six hundred miles from Goa.

Here St. Francis went into a village full of idolaters and preached Jesus Christ to them, but the inhabitants told him that they could not change their religion without the leave of their lord. Their obstinacy, however, yielded to the force of miracles, by which God was pleased to manifest his truth to them.

A woman who had been three days in the pains of childbirth, without being eased by any remedies or prayers of the Brahmins, was immediately delivered and recovered upon being instructed in the faith and baptized by St. Francis, as he himself relates in a letter to St. Ignatius. Upon this miracle not only that family, but most of the chief persons of the country, listened to his doctrine and heartily embraced the faith.

When Xavier proceeded to preach to the heathen Paravas so great were the multitudes which he baptized that sometimes, by the bare fatigue of administering that sacrament, he was scarcely able to move his arm, according to the account which he gave to his brethren in Europe. . . . Diseases seem never to have been so frequent on that coast as at that time; which happened as if it had been to drive the most obstinate in spite of their reluctance into the folds of the Church, for the people had almost all recourse to St. Francis for their cure or that of some friend, and great numbers recovered their health by being baptized or by invoking the name of Jesus. The saint frequently sent some young neophite with his crucifix, beads, or reliquary to touch the sick, after having recited with them the Lord's prayer, creed, and commandments; and the sick, by declaring unfeignedly that they believed in Christ and desired to be baptized, recovered their health.

This great number of miracles, and the admirable innocence, zeal, and sanctity of the preacher, recommended him to the veneration of the Brahmins themselves.

The process of the saint's canonization makes mention of four dead persons to whom God restored life at this time by the ministry of his servant. The first was a catechist who had been stung by a serpent of that kind whose stings are always mortal; the second was a child who was drowned in a pit; the third and fourth a young man and maid whom a pestilential fever had carried off.

AT TRAVANCORE.

While he exercised his zeal in Travancore God first communicated to him the gift of tongues, according to the relation of a young Portuguese of Coimbra, named Vaz, who attended him in many of his journeys. He spoke very well the language of those barbarians without having learned it, and had no need of an interpreter when he instructed them. He sometimes preached to five or six thousand persons together in some spacious plain.

As the saint was one day preaching at Coulon, a village in Travancore, perceiving that few were converted by his discourse, he made a short prayer that God would honor the blood and name of his beloved Son by softening the hearts of the most obdurate, Then he bade some of the people open the grave of a man who was buried the day before, near the place where he preached, and the body was beginning to putrefy with a noisome scent, which he desired the bystanders to observe. Then falling on his knees, after a short prayer, he commanded the dead man in the name of the living God to arise. At these words the dead man arose, not only living, but vigorous and in perfect health. All who were present were so struck with this evidence that, throwing themselves at the saint's feet, they demanded baptism.

The holy man also raised to life on the same coast a young man who was a Christian, whose corpse he met as it was carried to the grave. These miracles made so great impressions on the people that the whole kingdom of Travancore was subjected to Christ in a few months, except the king and some of his courtiers.

AT MALACCA.

The saint arrived here on September 25, 1545, and by the irresistible force of his zeal and miracles reformed the debauched manners of the Christians, and converted many Pagans and Mohammedans.

On a subsequent visit to Malacca Xavier restored to life a young man named Francis Ciavos, who afterward took the habit of the society.

IN JAPAN,

New miracles confirmed his doctrine. By his blessing, a child's body, which was swelled and deformed, was made straight and beautiful, and by his prayers a leper was healed, and a pagan young maid of quality that had been dead a whole day was raised to

life.

At Amanguchi God restored to St. Francis the gift of tongues; for he often preached to the Chinese merchants who traded there in their mother tongue, which he had never learned.

Passing over various miracles of a less imposing character, we only notice further those which occurred